Word.ws English Dictionary

played the devil with

played the devil with is the simple past and past participle of play the devil with.

Meaning of play the devil with

Verb

play the devil with (third-person singular simple present plays the devil with, present participle playing the devil with, simple past and past participle played the devil with)

  1. (colloquial, idiomatic) To cause great trouble or distress to.
    • There's a silly young fool; but perhaps it's not entirely his fault. The last six months of the war played the devil with many an unformed character.1937, Rupert Penny, The Talkative Policeman, page 166

Questions about played the devil with

What is played the devil with the simple past and past participle of?
Played the devil with is the simple past and past participle of play the devil with.

Words near played the devil with in the dictionary

  1. played the ball, not the man
  2. played the board
  3. played the cat and banjo with
  4. played the clitar
  5. played the deuce with
  6. played the devil with
  7. played the dickens with
  8. played the field
  9. played the fool
  10. played the game
  11. played the giddy goat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: played the devil with (page history and authors); play the devil with (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “played the devil with.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/played_the_devil_with. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.